


A Spoonful of Sugar

by llenclyen



Category: Mary Poppins (1964), Peter Pan (1953), Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie
Genre: World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 12:24:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2850758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llenclyen/pseuds/llenclyen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A flashback of Wendy's as she remembers when she picked up her somewhat unusual carpetbag during a busy day in a field hospital in WWII.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Spoonful of Sugar

Wendy looked at her carpetbag. It was a perfectly ordinary looking thing, but today it conjured up the memory of how she had come by it. It had happened during the war, in France. It had been a hideous day. They had patched up so many boys from the fighting that she felt as if her knees would fall off and her fingers could not move. She had seen twelve come across her surgeon's table, nine would live, seven would go back to the front, two...would not. She had to cart the leg of one of them away.  
Just as it looked as though the torrent was coming to an end she found a new solider on her table. He was older, late forties or early fifties. He was a colonel and had suffered three shots to his torso. The fact that he was still alive was a small miracle on its own, the surgery to see him stitched up properly would need to be fast and delicate and would require all of her skill as well as her doctor's. Just like all the other boys had but oh how Wendy had wished he had been here sooner. From his dog tags this colonel was a M. Banks. The orderly who had brought him in had done a good job of prepping him for surgery. The wounds where clearly visible and the blood that could be cleared away had been. The colonel was still groaning in pain as the anesthesia had yet to be administered. The orderly was at his side, a woman in her late 20s or so.  
“Now, now Michael, no more of that. I warned you about going off to play solider.”  
The orderly seemed rather familiar with the colonel and was speaking to him as if he were a child. Who was this woman who had just blown in with Col. Banks? Wendy checked his dog tags again and found that Bank's unit was stationed about 100km away. How had she gotten him here?  
“Mary Po-”, he reached up towards her with a look of astonishment on his face and she held his hand in both of hers while a nurse placed a mask over Col. Banks.  
“Hush now, no need for that. I've brought something to help the medicine go down and the nurse will see that you're well looked after.”  
Something like relief crept over his face as the gas started and he drifted off into a drugged slumber. The woman had tears in her eyes.   
“Chin up Michael, I-” she stuttered and seemed at a loss for words and looked about to sob, but then kissed the Colonel on his forehead.  
“I am so very proud of you.”  
Placing his hand out of Wendy's way she dried her tears and looked back at the nurse.   
“I'm leaving you my carpetbag. You will find a spoon and some sugar in there which will help him with any medicine he may need. Please... please take care of him.”  
Before Wendy could reply the woman was striding out of the O. R. grasping an umbrella of all things. There was a gust of wind as the doors opened and the woman was gone. Under the table was a well sized carpetbag which did contain the sugar and the spoon the woman had mentioned. As Wendy would find out, it always seemed to be able to hold more than it should. It took a long time and at least one miracle, but Col. Banks pulled through, though he was honorably discharged after he had recuperated. When he saw what the woman had brought he just smiled.  
“She didn't say 'goodbye', did she?”  
Wendy thought for a moment and then confirmed his suspicion.   
“Didn't think she would. She hates goodbyes.”  
“Who was she?”  
Col. Banks thought about that for a moment before answering.  
“If she brought me all the way over here to place me in your care then she must think you are something special. Perhaps she won't mind me saying a little. She is... practically perfect in every way.”  
Wendy couldn't get him to say anymore than that, and in years to come she would see him from time to time at the veterans clinic in London, but she never saw that strange woman again.


End file.
